Korean music (part 3)

This 3rd and final short video of Korean music from our trip to Seoul last weekend. This is a monk or priest playing the drum for a changing of the guards ceremony.

The drum is painted in the same color and style as the royal palaces and Buddhist temples.

Not sure whether this is a royal gate, temple, or tomb. Earlier in the day we had watched a much larger guard-changing ceremony at one of the big palaces.

I certainly recommend Seoul for a visit. It was inexpensive, the hospitality was great, and there was tons to see and do for free or for a small entrance fee.

Korean Music (part 2)

If the first video of Korean music from our trip to Seoul is high-brow, then this second one is certainly low-brow! I shot this just in front of our hotel.

These two guys were performing on the street outside a supermarket as part of a Re-Opening party. Not sure how to describe the music, a kind of electro/enka/karaoke, but it was fun.

I have to say that the drummer was not at all representative of the beauty and elegance of Korean women!

Our hotel was not in a tourist area, rather the kind of neighborhood the Japanese would call "shitamachi". Most businesses in the area were selling used cars, used car parts, car customizing parts etc.

Korean Music (part 1)

Just got from a great weekend in Seoul, my first time in Korea, and was really impressed with the hospitality. This first video was shot at Incheon Airport, where numerous areas around the airport provide glimpses of traditional Korean culture.

I'm not sure what this instrument is called, though it seems to be a type of harp. The flute the other musician was playing was very long.

After the concert there was a free class in using the korean flute, which was more like a recorder. After the class we all got to keep the flute!! A nice little extra that shows a commitment to tourism that Japan could learn from if it was really serious about increasing international tourism.

Tauebayashi: planting the rice

The 4th and final post on last weekend's Tauebayashi Matsuri.

The Tauebayashi Matsuri was originally a religious festival. Rice was life, and fertility was the concern of many religions. Nowadays the matsuri is kept alive as a "folk art", but the religious aspect is still vital. The 4 corners of the paddy have gohei in the 4 colors, and in the centre is a sacred tree representing the kami of the rice paddy. Ritual sake has been poured around the tree, and the bottle left as an offering. After prayers, the planting begins.

The planters were originally "saotome", possibly translated as "virgin", but also with elements of fertile maidens. Nowadays the maidens are aged up to 80 years old, and also some young men planted as well.

To the accompanienment of the song and drumming, which is supposed to strengthen the rice but also functions as a worksong, the line of planters gradually move backwards across the paddy planting as they go.

There were actually a couple of saotome in the group.

Finally a short video of the scene.

More photos and videos of Tauebayashi

Rice Planting!.... the musical!

The third post on the Tauebayashi Matsuri we went to on Sunday. This time a look at the musicians who play the worksong during the rice planting.

This character has no name, though he is wearing a Hyottoko mask. He keeps time for the music with a pair of small "changara", which is the local name for small hand cymbals.

There is a single flute player in the ensemble, and a group of 3 kodaiko players. The kodaiko is carried vertically and only the top is hit.

There is one player of the dora, a kind of bell/gong.

Most of the musicians play the okedo taiko, and it provides the meat of the sound. It is carried horizontally and both heads are struck.

For the first half of the planting the music was performed by the childrens ensemble, playing a smaller okedo taiko.

A short video of the lead singer.

More photos and videos of Tauebayashi

Rice planting the old way. Tauebayashi Matsuri

Spent a great morning today downriver in the village of Kawahira for the Tauebayashi matsuri.



Tauebayashi is a rice-planting worksong from this region of Japan, and kawahira is one of a handful of villages that still perform it. They performed it at last summers Horanenya Matsuri in Gotsu Honmachi

In this first of four posts, the sequence of photos show the procession to the rice paddy to be planted.

It was a full matsuri, with lots of tasty local food at cheap prices, no crowds, and very friendly people, all attributes of village matsuri's that I enjoy.

I'll post more photos over the next few days.

If your only experience of matsuri has been at some of the big, famous, city-based matsuri's, then you have missed a really wonderful part of Japan.

More photos and videos of tauebayashi

The gardens in May

A couple of video, with commentary, on what's going on in my veggie gardens right now.



The first is from the riverside garden, and the second from the village garden

Children's Matsuri

Today, May 5th, is Children's Day in Japan. In Kawado, the village across the river, it is also the day of the year's most important ceremony and matsuri, the Suijin Matsuri, and in the morning the kids have their own parade.

It begins in the local shrine, where a longer ceremony will take place this afternoon.

The kids are purified and the Kami invited to attend.

The float pulled by the kids has a family of Kappa, or Enko as they are known locally. Soon I will get around to posting the local story about Enko.

The kids taking part are young as the local schools have baseball matches today, and for many young boys baseball is more important.

The birthrate in the countryside is fairly healthy. It's the people of the cities who are having few babies. Hardly surprising.

After the ceremony the lightweight "mikoshi" is carried down to where the float waits and the procession heads off around the village.

Gozamai The mat dance Izumo Kagura

Gozamai The mat dance Izumo Kagura

I have only ever seen this dance twice, and both times it was by the Ichiyama Kagura Group at an Omoto Kagura performance.

The dance is performed by a single dancer, and begins with the rolled-up mat in one hand and bells in the other. Later the mat is unfurled and the dancer steps backwards and forwards through it then wraps himself in it and spins around. As the dance progresses the pace increases.

The dance originates from Sada Shrine up in Izumo, where the dance is performed once a year as part of replacing of the mats in the shrine.

Sada Shrine, one of the 3 most important shrines in Izumo before the ascendency of Izumo Taisha in the late Heian Period, is the home of Izumo kagura, one of 3 or 4 styles of kagura in Japan. It is generally believed that Iwami Kagura is derived from Izumo kagura.

Tengai Dance, Omoto Kagura

This short video is from my favorite of all the Omoto Kagura dances. The tengai is the canopy above a kagura performance space. The kami descend through the colored paper streamers and into the dancers.

The tengai dance is unusual in that it is not humans who dance, but the tengai itself. I have not come across anything like this anywhere else in japan, and I have a lot more research to do to understand it.

For Omoto kagura there is a somewhat different tengai, among the paper streamers are lantern/box like structures.

The boxes are connected by ropes to the priests who sit at the side of the area.

Before the dance begins long streamers inside the boxes are unfurled and hang down. I suspect the writing on them has daoist or esoteric buddhist meaning, as Omoto Kagura was brought to this area by Yamabushi of Shugendo.

The dance begins slowly with the boxes being lowered and raised slowly, gradually the tempo increases and then lateral movement, swinging, and twisting all begin. As with normal kagura, at times audience members or musicians will shout when a particularly fine sequence of movements are executed.

I've seen the Tengai dance performed by 3 priests, and once by only 2 priests, and was stunned by the intricacy and complexity of the movements created.

Omoto Kagura

It is believed that the root of Japanese religion, AND the root of Japanese performing arts lie in shamanic trance. Shamanic kagura was once commonplace throughout Japan, but was suppressed by the Meiji government. Only one place in Japan still has traditional shamanic kagura and that happens to be the place I live. I will be posting a lot more on this subject as it is the focus of a lot of my research and there is almost nothing on it in English.

The focus of Omoto kagura is Omoto, or Omotojin, the local land-based kami. Up in Izumo it is called Kojin, and like Omoto is represented as a rope snake. There are about 60 sites in my area that are considered Omoto shrines, though only a few have shrine buildings. Omoto kagura is practised at a handful of shrines, each shrine working to a 5, 6, or 7 year cycle, so some years there is no Omoto kagura , some years several performances.

Omoto kagura is performed by priests, and in fact all the priests of the county take part. As in the old days, the villagers perform theatrical kagura during the intervals between the priests various dances.

The supreme importance of Omoto kagura to the area is indicated by the number of offerings on the altar. I counted more than 40 different things on the altar at this performance in Ichiyama, compared with less than a dozen at a normal ceremony.

The dance in the video is called Tsunanuki (rope-pulling) and is probably the most well known of the various dances. If an Omoto kagura is successful then someone will be possessed by Omotojin and will answer questions by the priests usually on such matters as the coming years agricultural cycle, upcoming dangers etc. The grandfather of a friend of mine became possessed by Omotojin on 5 different occasions in the last half of the 20th Century.

Iwaishima kagura

This short video is of a kagura performance on the small island of Iwaishima, or as some people say, Iwaijima, off the southern coast of Yamaguchi.

If you compare it to some of the other videos of Iwami Kagura, you will see some differences.

The music is different, and the costumes are much simpler.

This is the first dance of 33 that were performed over a 3 day period as part of Kannmai Matsuri held every 5 years.

The opening dance features Kojin, the local kami of the island, though the mask look a lot like a Tengu, or even Sarutahiko.

Kojin is equivalent to the kami Omoto in my area, and is known as an Aragami, "rough kami", though I prefer turbulent kami. In this dance the priest pacifies Kojin.

The kagura dances are performed in a temporary structure with grass roof and walls erected near the harbor

The priests come from northern Kyushu, which has its own kagura traditions, so I don't know whether these performances are from that tradition or the southern Yamaguchi kagura tradition.

The masks are wooden, and so are simpler than Iwami Kagura masks.

Susuharae

Priests at Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine perform Susuharae.

Susuharae, or susuharai, refers to the year-end housecleaning that all "good" Japanese housewives are busy with right now, but the term has an older meaning specifically relating to shrines.

Susu is commonly translated as "dust", but actually refers to a form of spiritual pollution ( tsumi, kegare) that collects particularly in corners. Here the priests are using long pieces of bamboo as brushes to sweep away the susu from the front of the main hall at the shrine in preparation for the new year.

I visited several shrines last weekend in Fukuoka, and they were all busy getting ready for the expected influx of visitors for the first visit of the new year, often the busiest day of the year at many shrines.

Hiroshima Kagura

A couple of months ago we were driving along a backroad in SE Hiroshima on our way to Shikoku when we saw a small shrine at the side of the road with all the banners flying and the parking area full of cars, matsuri!!

We pulled in and were delighted to find kagura being performed.

The kagura in this area is related to Iwami kagura, but one noticeable difference is that the "heroes" don't wear masks but rather use makeup.

It was a very small shrine, but it had a kagura-den, which was in fact the largest building at the shrine. The audience was small, and mostly elderly people. The kagura group was from somewhere else in the region.

The steps down from the shrine to the kagura den were lined with shimenawa, creating a sacred space for the kami to descend to the performance. I asked the locals who were manning the stalls what the name of the kami was, but they didn't know so they suggested I ask the priest. He had been enjoying the O-miki (offering sake shared by the congregation and kami) and he admitted he had forgotten!

As is usual in the back country of Japan, the villagers were very friendly and we were treated as honored guests. They gave us a bunch of yakitori and a pack of the areas speciality, candied peanuts.

Visiting village matsuris is one of my favorite activities. There is no comparison to the crowded, tourist-filled events that are the famous city matsuris.